REGINA - The opposition New Democrats were at the Legislature Monday staging an emergency caucus meeting to respond to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada.
Opposition Leader Carla Beck told reporters she had sent a letter to Premier Scott Moe the previous day “outlining the importance of our response to the unprecedented attack by the American administration.”
She repeated her call for the immediate recall of the Legislature and is “asking for all measures to be on the table to be mounting a response to a fight that frankly we didn’t pick, but we are not going to back away from.”
Beck said her MLAs were ready to continue to do the work and reach out to their contacts on both sides of the border. Beck also said they were prepared to put forward ideas showing they are “serious and not taking this attack lying down,” such as pulling American liquor from liquor stores and looking at procurement and contracts.
Already, other provinces have announced moves to pull American liquor from their shelves. Ontario also announced this morning they had cancelled a contract with Starlink, owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk, over the tariffs.
Beck said she also wanted to see the message taken directly to Americans that the tariff measures would cost jobs and have deep consequences on both sides of the border.
The NDP leader also pointed to the reaction from Saskatchewan people to the tariffs, saying they were checking store labels more closely and looking to do their part. She said Saskatchewan people understand this attack was "unprovoked."
“We’ve heard from Saskatchewan people that they’re scared, that they are angry, and they want to see a strong response from the provincial governments and the Federal government to this unprecedented attack.”
Beck made clear her commitment to carrying out this work and said her MLAs will “continue to do that work whether the Sask Party government comes back to the table, comes back to the Legislature or not.”
Beck’s remarks came on a day of fast-moving developments regarding the tariffs. Prior to her remarks, news came out that Trump had agreed to delay imposing tariffs on Mexico by a month, following a commitment by the Mexican president to deploy 10,000 troops at the border to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also scheduled to speak with Trump on the tariff issue this afternoon.
Moe's response
The NDP emergency caucus meeting took place around the same time that Premier Scott Moe was starting a news conference in Saskatoon in response to the Trump tariffs. In his comments there, Moe pointed to the Mexico announcement and said he "would urge and have urged already our federal government to engage in a similar conversation, and it might have a similar outcome for Canadian families."
Regarding the retaliatory tariffs scheduled to come in on Tuesday, Moe said they "unfortunately are necessary." But he did point to the opportunity for further discussions on the issue and reiterated his support for greater border security measures.
"I would be the first to support this federal government in bringing the CBSA or Canadian Border Security Agency under an arm of the military. That would provide military troops the opportunity to be present on our 49th parallel, and maybe in our airports if necessary." Moe added that Canadians share those concerns and that "anything that we can do to remove fentanyl from our communities is going to be viewed as positive by the families I've talked to."
When asked about Beck's demand for the immediate reconvening of the Legislature, Moe replied "what would we do?"
He particularly responded to Beck's calls for billboards to be put up in the Chicago subway. Moe pointed out Illinois's Governor, Senators and House representatives were all Democrats and not in Trump's sphere of influence.
"We don't need to reconvene the Legislature to put up some billboards in the subway in the community of Chicago," Moe said.
Moe also pointed to the provincial government having run some ads in the Financial Times a number of years ago that went into Washington DC.
"I believe we were criticized by the very same Leader of the Opposition for that outreach and investment," said Moe.
"Thankfully, we didn't listen to that criticism and have doubled down our investments in the last number of years in advocating for access of Saskatchewan products to global markets. Those points of communication, and those marketplaces and individuals that we've built relationships with, are going to be very crucial going forward -- none of them are in the Saskatchewan Legislature."
